Do As You Would (Have) be (Been) Done by
That was pretty much a reversal of last season's corresponding game. This wasn't the fired out f the cannon, blitzkrieg, gagen for it, start that Liverpool were favouring last season, this was a much more pragmatic animal. Klopp had done his homework, knew that letting us get halfway up the pitch, left exposed zones, readily exploitable by his explosive front three. Their forward press wasn't so much of an aggressive onslaught as a clever herding process, then as soon as the ball went into midfield, it become a swarm, and with the shape we played, and the deployment within that that Poch used, we were like turtles in windsock.
Last year they pushed up, leaving Moreno, Lovren and the rooky Gomez dangling in the wind. This time we did the same on both our flanks.
Even if you are a fan of Dier as a midfielder, which I'm definitely not, playing him in that RM/8 type role in the diamond is fucking bonkers. Poch already had a nightmare prequel to this at OT and changed it after 30 minutes. Why do against this lot who are even more at it. Playing the dawdling Dembele, who was clearly targeted by their press, as the central pivot and Winks left was just a triple whammy of counter intuitiveness. If you are playing those three, surely you put Dier central, Dembele left and Winks right, so they can interchange and feed the pushed up FB's? The result was a ponderous, clumsy and incoherent mess of a midfield.
Poch also decided that pushing the FB's up really high, with a 2CB, narrow diamond, high line was a good idea idea too. So every time we coughed up the ball, which we are doing more than any other team in this league right now, their midfield transitioned quickly to their three forwards and it was a miracle they didn't convert any of the many great situations they found themselves, often bearing down on our defence with even or man over overloads, left, right and central.
In possession, Trippier had no-one to interchange with as Dier just can't play intricate give go football, like he does with Eriksen when he plays that side as an 8, so as soon as the midfield press kicked in, he had nowhere to go. Rose fared a smidgeon better at getting forward, having Winks or the left leaning Dembele helping his side, but as ever, whenever in forward areas Rose disengaged his brain and just fucked it away. I looked at half time and Rose had given the ball away 50% of every pass he'd tried.
Poch has got to take a lot of the blame for this. It's not all his fault that players are constantly careless, but he's putting them into a tactical structure that isn't helping them at all.
I don't like this fucking 442 diamond, it funnels everything narrow, it sees Kane dropping and bumbling about in our half, Moura running into congestion, the full backs with too much to do and getting horribly exposed. Even if Poch set it up right, it's flawed IMO, but he's not. The midfield were all over the fucking place. Against Liverpool last year we were the pragmatic ones, sat deeper, pressed deeper, we played a back 3, so the full backs could push, and when we won the ball we had Winks, Alli and Eriksen getting their heads up and moving it quickly to the FB's, Kane and Son, with Eriksen and Alli also threats. Who out of Winks, Dier or Dembele supported the attack? Certainly not Dier or Dembele, who never do, and a rusty Winks struggled too.
And as if the default structure wasn't bad enough, through the first half we had all three CM's swapping about, and whilst sometimes tactical flexibility is good, it just seemed to fuck us up more than it did Liverpool, who all seemed to know exactly what their roles were. And the second half degenerated into a game of musical chairs, to the tune of the keystone cops, I gave up trying to work our what our structure was, gave up caring.
This malaise didn't start at Newcastle, it was evident the back end of last season. The midfield issue really goes back longer. Dier should never have been indulged like he has been (Poch himself saying he sees Dier's future as a CB) and Dembele's been functionally degrading almost since the day we bought him.
Liverpool weren't scintillating today, they were just tactically much more cohesive, joined up and smarter than we were.
Poch needs to get fucking brave. If we aren't buying people (and I'm not someone who screams for signings but we desperately needed to improve our midfield - Dier isn't one, Dembele's gone, Wanyama may never be the same and Winks has question marks too), then he needs to be brave, go back to his roots, an introduce one or two of the academy kids. I know this will get scoffed at, but they seriously cannot be any worse than Dier and Dembele trundling around like drunken rhinos. They'll make mistakes, but I'd rather watch us fail playing with some fucking vim and energy, than fail looking like we're mainlining mogodon. I'm not talking wholesale, just use one or two of them judiciously with Eriksen, Wanyama, Alli, Dembele, pep things up.
And he needs to ditch this fucking two CF bollocks. Get two of Moura and Lamela or Son as wide inverted forwards either side of Kane (we could even give Kane a rest and play Alli as a false 9 for a couple of games) and most of all, get some vim and fucking energy back into our midfield.
We should have had penalty and maybe would have snatched something from this game, but it would have put a very false gloss on it.
Individual
Vorm - Poor punch leading to first goal. Did make several good saves as well though. Unlucky with the comical second I think.
Trippier - Probably played the only clever pass of this game for us, putting Eriksen through, but like Rose, often found himself horribly exposed by our set up, and got done in the build up to their second goal.
Alderweireld - Really mixed bag, mistakes (including the one the leads to the goal) and some Ok defending too.
Vertonghen - OK.
Rose - Good energy, fucking careless with the ball, and got caught ball watching a couole of times, one allowing Salah through late on.
Dier - Dire - but not helped by Poch playing him as a RM/8
Dembele - He's going to need a tent pulled round him soon.
Winks - First half the only vaguely bright spark, got on the ball more than the other two, but faded, and I have always had doubts about the defensive side of his game. But played in a more lively CM3, that could be mitigated.
Eriksen - Not great, but another one suffering from a lack of a cohesive structure.
Moura - Lively moments, short on composure.
Kane - The ghost of Christmas Kane past.
That was pretty much a reversal of last season's corresponding game. This wasn't the fired out f the cannon, blitzkrieg, gagen for it, start that Liverpool were favouring last season, this was a much more pragmatic animal. Klopp had done his homework, knew that letting us get halfway up the pitch, left exposed zones, readily exploitable by his explosive front three. Their forward press wasn't so much of an aggressive onslaught as a clever herding process, then as soon as the ball went into midfield, it become a swarm, and with the shape we played, and the deployment within that that Poch used, we were like turtles in windsock.
Last year they pushed up, leaving Moreno, Lovren and the rooky Gomez dangling in the wind. This time we did the same on both our flanks.
Even if you are a fan of Dier as a midfielder, which I'm definitely not, playing him in that RM/8 type role in the diamond is fucking bonkers. Poch already had a nightmare prequel to this at OT and changed it after 30 minutes. Why do against this lot who are even more at it. Playing the dawdling Dembele, who was clearly targeted by their press, as the central pivot and Winks left was just a triple whammy of counter intuitiveness. If you are playing those three, surely you put Dier central, Dembele left and Winks right, so they can interchange and feed the pushed up FB's? The result was a ponderous, clumsy and incoherent mess of a midfield.
Poch also decided that pushing the FB's up really high, with a 2CB, narrow diamond, high line was a good idea idea too. So every time we coughed up the ball, which we are doing more than any other team in this league right now, their midfield transitioned quickly to their three forwards and it was a miracle they didn't convert any of the many great situations they found themselves, often bearing down on our defence with even or man over overloads, left, right and central.
In possession, Trippier had no-one to interchange with as Dier just can't play intricate give go football, like he does with Eriksen when he plays that side as an 8, so as soon as the midfield press kicked in, he had nowhere to go. Rose fared a smidgeon better at getting forward, having Winks or the left leaning Dembele helping his side, but as ever, whenever in forward areas Rose disengaged his brain and just fucked it away. I looked at half time and Rose had given the ball away 50% of every pass he'd tried.
Poch has got to take a lot of the blame for this. It's not all his fault that players are constantly careless, but he's putting them into a tactical structure that isn't helping them at all.
I don't like this fucking 442 diamond, it funnels everything narrow, it sees Kane dropping and bumbling about in our half, Moura running into congestion, the full backs with too much to do and getting horribly exposed. Even if Poch set it up right, it's flawed IMO, but he's not. The midfield were all over the fucking place. Against Liverpool last year we were the pragmatic ones, sat deeper, pressed deeper, we played a back 3, so the full backs could push, and when we won the ball we had Winks, Alli and Eriksen getting their heads up and moving it quickly to the FB's, Kane and Son, with Eriksen and Alli also threats. Who out of Winks, Dier or Dembele supported the attack? Certainly not Dier or Dembele, who never do, and a rusty Winks struggled too.
And as if the default structure wasn't bad enough, through the first half we had all three CM's swapping about, and whilst sometimes tactical flexibility is good, it just seemed to fuck us up more than it did Liverpool, who all seemed to know exactly what their roles were. And the second half degenerated into a game of musical chairs, to the tune of the keystone cops, I gave up trying to work our what our structure was, gave up caring.
This malaise didn't start at Newcastle, it was evident the back end of last season. The midfield issue really goes back longer. Dier should never have been indulged like he has been (Poch himself saying he sees Dier's future as a CB) and Dembele's been functionally degrading almost since the day we bought him.
Liverpool weren't scintillating today, they were just tactically much more cohesive, joined up and smarter than we were.
Poch needs to get fucking brave. If we aren't buying people (and I'm not someone who screams for signings but we desperately needed to improve our midfield - Dier isn't one, Dembele's gone, Wanyama may never be the same and Winks has question marks too), then he needs to be brave, go back to his roots, an introduce one or two of the academy kids. I know this will get scoffed at, but they seriously cannot be any worse than Dier and Dembele trundling around like drunken rhinos. They'll make mistakes, but I'd rather watch us fail playing with some fucking vim and energy, than fail looking like we're mainlining mogodon. I'm not talking wholesale, just use one or two of them judiciously with Eriksen, Wanyama, Alli, Dembele, pep things up.
And he needs to ditch this fucking two CF bollocks. Get two of Moura and Lamela or Son as wide inverted forwards either side of Kane (we could even give Kane a rest and play Alli as a false 9 for a couple of games) and most of all, get some vim and fucking energy back into our midfield.
We should have had penalty and maybe would have snatched something from this game, but it would have put a very false gloss on it.
Individual
Vorm - Poor punch leading to first goal. Did make several good saves as well though. Unlucky with the comical second I think.
Trippier - Probably played the only clever pass of this game for us, putting Eriksen through, but like Rose, often found himself horribly exposed by our set up, and got done in the build up to their second goal.
Alderweireld - Really mixed bag, mistakes (including the one the leads to the goal) and some Ok defending too.
Vertonghen - OK.
Rose - Good energy, fucking careless with the ball, and got caught ball watching a couole of times, one allowing Salah through late on.
Dier - Dire - but not helped by Poch playing him as a RM/8
Dembele - He's going to need a tent pulled round him soon.
Winks - First half the only vaguely bright spark, got on the ball more than the other two, but faded, and I have always had doubts about the defensive side of his game. But played in a more lively CM3, that could be mitigated.
Eriksen - Not great, but another one suffering from a lack of a cohesive structure.
Moura - Lively moments, short on composure.
Kane - The ghost of Christmas Kane past.
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